There Is No “Middle” In Congress Anymore

Chris Cillizza has taken a look at votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate going all the way back to 1982, and it confirms what we already knew, namely that there is no such thing as a “middle ground” in the Congress of the United States anymore.

For example, here’s the chart showing votes in the House:

As he explains in the post, Cillizza utilizes the Annual Vote Ratings compiled by National Journal and the chart is meant to show the distance between the most liberal and conservative members of the House. In 1982,there were a total of 344 members of the House that fell within the boundaries of “ideological overlap,” which constitutes a fair approximation of the “middle” of the ideological balance in the House of Representatives. In 2013, there were only four, representing a loss of 70% over the course of 31 years. Cillizza proposes that he most likely explanation for this drastic drop in the membership of the bipartisan middle lies in redistricting, and this seems like a fairly plausible explanation. One can see one example of that in the differences between 2012 and 2013, because it was in 2013 that the first Congress elected pursuant to the redistricting done after the 2010 census took office.

What’s interesting is the fact that we can see basically the same thing happening in the Senate:

In the course of just over 30 years, we’ve seen the Senate go from a body where “the middle” constituted the majority to one where there is no middle at all. Since the Senate is not subject to the effects of redistricting this suggests that the the disappearance of the political middle is due to more than just the impact of redistricting in the House of Representatives.

Cillizza doesn’t offer any theories of his own in the post for what might explain this phenomenon, but it isn’t too difficult to figure them out.

One factor, of course, is the fact that our political culture has changed significantly since 1982. Back then, the Cold War was still a reality and the nation was more or less united when it came to issues of foreign policy. Additionally, for better or worse by the late 1970s the nation had reached something of an ideological consensus on issues regarding the role of government. Back then, the conservative wing of the Republican Party was a decided minority and it was a Republican President who had been known as a staunch conservative when he first came to Washington, Richard Nixon, who gave the nation such “liberal” ideas such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act, and vigorous enforcement of school desegregation polices first started twenty years earlier under another Republican President. Ronald Reagan had been elected in 1980, of course, but it was far from apparent at that point just how much his Presidency would transform the Republican Party and the nation. The largest among those changes, of course, was the rise of the conservative wing of the GOP and the steady decline of the Rockefeller wing of the party. The rightward drift of the GOP alone is no doubt at least partly responsible for the fact that there isn’t nearly as much agreement in Congress as there used to be.

Accompanying the rise of the conservative wing of the GOP, of course, has been the rise of alternative sources of information and opinion that simply didn’t exist three decades ago. Talk radio, cable news networks, and the Internet have all contributed to the ability of people to only consult news and opinion sources that reinforce their own beliefs, and this leads them to support candidates that tend to appeal to ideological extremes rather than the consensus held by a political middle. Finally, the fact that there is seemingly no break in the partisan political battles likely also helps encourage ide0logical extremism.

The interesting thing about all of this, of course, is that while the political middle is dead in Congress, it is alive and well in America as a whole. We see this reflected every four years in Presidential contests, where candidates can only win by appealing to that broad swath of voters in the middle because concentrating on ideological extremes is a recipe for failure, Indeed, although Republicans will be loathe to admit it, it’s rather obvious that Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012 because he was much more appealing to those middle of the road voters than either of his Republican opponents. Given the size of the nation and the manner in which we elect Presidents, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see anything like an “end of the middle” in Presidential politics. However, it’s hard to see when we might see a return to the middle in the Legislative Branch, and as long as that’s the case it’s hard to see Washington being able to accomplish much of anything.

Comments

Missing from this explanation is the other side of it — the decimation of the Southern Democrats, especially in the House. By and large, as the Southern Democrats from the 1970’s retired, they were replaced by Republicans, except in majority-minority districts in the House. This removed many of the most conservative Democrats, shrinking the “middle” as defined here just as much as the vanishing of Rockefeller Republicans.

DW-NOMINATE provides a much better methodology, but reaches the same conclusions.
Both parties have moved away from the middle. Democrats because of the loss of the southern Democrats, Republicans because the only way they can win is Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which has created a positive feedback loop between voters, pols, and the Conservative Entertainment Complex; getting closer to the wingularity with each new election cycle.

Republican does not equal sociopath.
Democrat does not equal monopoly on empathy.

This polarized thinking is probably part of the problem.

Congress sees the opposition party as the enemy and legislation as an ideological war. My guess is the internet (where there are liberal echo chambers just as damaging to our legislative process as the conservative one).

@Just Me: While you have a point about liberal echo chambers existing, the right has been building multiple echo chambers outside the Internet for decades. Radio and TV echo chambers were established long before MSNBC and Daily Kos.

And, as Ron implicitly points out, right-leaning legislators are a bit more beholden to their echo chamber-infected constituencies than their left-leaning counterparts.

Doug… Actually, what you see in Congress is a distortion of whats going on ‘outside the beltway’ as it were. The mythical center never did exist. Never.

Its as I said a week or two ago…. The vast majority of americans come down to the right of anything either party has puked up since Reagan. Which in turn is why most americans no longer vote, feeling there is nobody to vote FOR, and why the polling data the last two go rounds was so skewed.

Those that still do vote come down in the area of the radical left, which explains both congress and Obama. Though I note with satisfaction some disenchantment there.

This is so simple minded…I can’t believe this post is meant as anything but pure facetiousness.

The rightward drift of the GOP alone is no doubt at least partly responsible for the fact that there isn’t nearly as much agreement in Congress as there used to be.

How about solely? Republicans have become so radically ideological that there is no possible way to find middle ground. Once you have identified the opposition as the devil…you inevitably figure out that it’s politically impossible to make a deal with the devil.

Democrat: Let’s get together and pass a Republican Drafted Reform to Health Care. A Republican Govenor passed it in MA and it’s working.
Republican: No way…that’s socialism. And besides…Death Panels.

Republican: Let’s get together and pass Immigration Reform.
Democrat: OK!!! Let’s do it.
Republican: No way I’m voting for a bill I drafted and sponsored.

Republican: Let’s get together and pass an environmental bill called cap and trade…emissions trading.
Democrat: OK!!! Let’s do it.
Republican: No way I’m voting for a bill that started as a Republican concept.

Republican: This President is a Socialist.
Democrat; Government is smaller per capita than it’s been since the 80’s. And even when Obama had the chance he didn’t nationalize the car industry of the banking industry.
Republican: And a Muslim.

@Ron Beasley: Both extremes are bad, as your post so aptly shows. While I disagree vehemently with much of what the extreme right wing says and does, I also feel the same way about the extreme left. However, I have not and will not ever call anyone on either side a sociopath. It’s not only rude, it derails the ability to reach any kind of common ground. I’m sick of our political wars, because they prevent any good being done for the middle, which vastly outnumbers either the extreme right or the extreme left.

Its as I said a week or two ago…. The vast majority of americans come down to the right of anything either party has puked up since Reagan. Which in turn is why most americans no longer vote, feeling there is nobody to vote FOR, and why the polling data the last two go rounds was so skewed.

And I bet you will continue to say this without a single lick of proof to back up your statement.

BTW, as I have said before, if this was the case it also means that the majority of Americans are apparently all terrible citizen as they don’t care enough to get their act together to make government work (i.e. stand up and elect candidates that represent what they believe).

For all of your complaints about Republicans, the last I checked they still have primaries.

If your assertion is right then it’s also true the vast majority of Americans, those non-voting conservatives, are the largest herd of whiny “sheeple” (to use a pet phrase of yours) ever.

Apparently all those conserva-sheeple seem to do is just complain about how they’re victims and passively shuffle into the future. Not quite sure why you want to associate with such a bunch of losers.

(I’d also love to understand how a total abdication of civic responsibility because you don’t like your options is a “conservative value” either)

To be honest, I can’t see anyone who would vote for the Ryan budget as anything but sociopathic. And how about the Republican governors who voted against Medicaid expansion, damning their poor and working class constiutents to going without access to health care for no good reason? Here is the story of a woman who died because theb Governor of Florida rejected expanded Medicaid:

Next time you see someone like Americans for Prosperity’s Jennifer Stefano shouting about the ridiculously generous benefits for Medicaid under Obamacare, you might want to picture Charlene Dill in your head. Charlene Dill was a 32-year-old woman who had three kids, was separated from her husband, and, with a combination of part-time jobs, was barely scraping by. She got booted off Medicaid because her princely $9000 a year was too much income — she couldn’t afford a divorce yet, so the program took her estranged husband’s income into account. And that was a problem, because Charlene Dill had a heart condition that could be managed with medication, which she couldn’t afford without Medicaid. And so on March 21, Charlene Dill died of heart failure while demonstrating a vacuum cleaner at a home in Kissimmee, Florida. She would have been covered by Medicaid if Florida had agreed to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, but Florida’s legislature has so far blocked it, because Obamacare is bad, and handouts make people lazy.

Go read the full story by Wonket friend Billy Manes at Orlando Weekly. We need to be angry about this. Dare we say it, we need to be emotional about this. People who fall into the gap between Medicaid and the level of income subsidized by the ACA are dying because they cannot get medical care. These aren’t people who are inconvenienced because they had to switch plans. These are people who are left out of the system altogether through the deliberate choice of governors and legislatures who want to score a point against Barack Obama.

Far as I’m concerned, Rick Scott allowed that woman to die when he could have prevented it .by deciding to accept Medicaid expansion. Allowing people to die for political advantage or because of idealogical purity is to me the definition of sociopathy. Don’t like being called a sociopath? Don’t act like one, or support those who act sociopathic.

While I disagree vehemently with much of what the extreme right wing says and does, I also feel the same way about the extreme left.

One important difference is that the extreme right is a very relevant political force, while the extreme left is nearly irrelevant (politically.) There is no extreme left equivalent in the Democratic Party to the extreme right with their tea party politicians in the Republican Party.

Republicans err on the side of maximum dickage. Invade Iraq, cut welfare. No, you can’t get married or contraception in your healthplan. I’m religious! Democrats err on the side of empathetic naivete. “He’s not a criminal; he’s just misunderstood.” “Racist and sexism are awful; That’s why I don’t watch movies with white male leads.”

Your examples of Republican positions are actual real-world policies that are actually held and espoused, loudly, by the party leadership, including their candidates for president, and that their representatives and voters vote for.

Your examples of Democratic positions are not actually held or believed or espoused by the party leadership or representatives, and are not real-world policies that the Democrats try to bring about through legislation.

So once again, examples of real-world, current day Republican evil are contrasted against made-up fantasies of what a 1970s Democrat was painted as supposedly believing to prove that both sides do it….

I’d argue that Democrats err on the side of empathetic practical realism, while Republicans err on the side of cruel fantasy. It’s Democrats, remember, who bring down the deficit, balance the budget, grow the economy and reform healthcare and who actually calculate the real-world costs of policies, while it’s Republicans who blow up the budget and crash the economy through naive childish fantasies of Randian power.

In other words, who’s more of a realist who grapples with pragmatic solutions to actual problems: George W. Bush or Barack Obama?

Absolutely. Obamacare, for example, is a prime example: empathetic, in that it provides health care to all, and practical and realistic, in that it bends the cost curve down and reforms the system so that it’s more efficient than what we had before (and is far more empathetic and practical than anything the GOP has ever proposed).

The Democrats aren’t perfect by a long shot, but when you compare the two, the Democratic policies are usually both better for everyone and more realistically grounded in a practical cost-benefit analysis.

People keep saying this; but I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. There are bloggers, commenters, demonstrators, radio talkers, and academics who may be extreme left. What sitting or recent representative, senator, or president do you feel represents an extreme left? Who’s the both-sides-do-it equivalent of a Louis Gohmert, Jim DeMint, Michele Bachmann, or Paul Ryan? And what have they done to make you feel they’re extreme left?

Maybe this is why the center looks so far, far, far away to Republicans…Fat Rush on the Colbert hire:

“…CBS has just declared war on the Heartland of America…No longer is comedy going to be a covert assault on traditional American values. Now it’s just wide out in the open…What this hire means is a redefinition of what is “funny” and a redefinition of what is comedy…It’s the media planting a flag here. I think it’s maybe the media’s last stand, but it’s a declaration. There’s no unity in this hire. They’ve hired a partisan, so-called comedian to run a comedy show…”

@anjin-san: I can’t get past Ryan passing out Atlas Shrugged to his staff, apparently regarding himself as John Galt personified; while living his entire adult life on the government teat. There’s just something not right about that boy.

@Moosebreath: The southern Democrats are alive and thriving at the local levels. In our area no Republican has been elected since the “Reconstruction” disaster.
At the national level there certainly is no middle, centrist, moderate, pragmatic leadership. I remember great statesmen of the past: Humphrey, Johnson, Dirksen, Connaly, Hatfield, O’Neill, Russell, Fulbright, Nunn, and Long. These worked together and got things done. Those were days of statesmanship. Now it is adversarial and self serving.

I am tired of the assumption that polarization is here to stay. Today’s polarization is a conscious choice of the GOP leadership to oppose Obama and deny him political success almost from the eve of his inauguration. I hate it, but I’m not sure it wasn’t the right play from a Machiavellian perspective. In 2017, a different president will be elected, and the political leaders of the GOP and the Dems will react/counteract according to the political terrain of 2017 and where they want to position the parties for the future. We may have the two parties smoking the peace pipe and agreeing on major initiatives or we may see elevated tensions leading to debt ceiling disasters and months-long government shutdowns. Anybody who tells you they know is lying. The trend continues until it doesn’t.

Since this was a post on the membership of Congress, that may not be the most relevant observation.

“At the national level there certainly is no middle, centrist, moderate, pragmatic leadership.”

It may be a chicken-and-egg problem. Is the lack of an ideological middle due to a change in leadership, or is the change in leadership due to a lack of members in the ideological middle? I would suggest that the lack of members in the middle came first, as more moderate leaders like Jim Wright, Dick Gephardt, George Mitchell, Bob Michel, Alan Simpson and Bob Dole are in power well after this effect starts.

The trend in the House is due to redistricting, and there’s an identical trend in the Senate with a different and unclear explanation? Huh? That doesn’t pass the smell test. You can’t post two identical graphs and say that the one thing that applies to Group A and not Group B is the cause of the pattern in Group A. At least you can’t say it without making a really strong case about what caused the same pattern in Group B.

@Eric Florack: ” The vast majority of americans come down to the right of anything either party has puked up since Reagan. Which in turn is why most americans no longer vote, feeling there is nobody to vote FOR, and why the polling data the last two go rounds was so skewed.”

What a perfectly reality-proof bit of reasoning: America wants hard-right politicians, and I can prove this by pointing out that people don’t vote, which means they’re pining for Brownshirts.

It’s completely without grounding or logic, of course, but it can never be refuted. Well done, Erick. You have managed to get your entire head into that small orifice.

Your examples of Democratic positions are not actually held or believed or espoused by the party leadership or representatives, and are not real-world policies that the Democrats try to bring about through legislation.

Be a little fair, man. I’m a liberal. Of course, I think the Republicans are loonier than the Democrats.

@EddieInCA: I was going to do a whole response to this, and I’ll try to if I get the time, but I was trying to remember Rachel Maddow’s name and I couldn’t think of it. So I typed “MSNBC” into Google and clicked on it. Do it right now.

There is nothing empathetic in spending borrowed money to backstop the bad decisions of too many people. Demanding that the taxies on others be increased (tax the rich) and spendng borrowed money (See Paul Krugman) with the promise that you will chnage your habits in the future is just as sociopathic as anything the Republicans have proposed.

There is nothing empathetic in spending borrowed money to backstop the bad decisions of too many people.

I assume you’re talking about OCO defense spending here…?

This is the thing that weirds me about Republicans — their need to believe that the poor deserve to be poor. That somehow their poor choice of parents, upbringing, native country, mother tongue, skin color, and/or mental health merits the punishment they have received.

Just out of curiosity, what fraction of welfare recipients do you believe squandered a perfectly good start through “bad decisions”, and what fraction have pretty much just played the hand they were dealt?

I was pretty much born on second base, my dad a successful, well connected attorney, both parents highly intelligent and educated. Grew up in a high wealth area, comfortable around money and success, and well aware of the comforts they can bring you. This one fact has made my life easier in so many ways.

Was that a good decision on my part? Am I wrong to want to see people who did not get such a good start in life handed to them on a platter have a shot at the American dream, or failing that, a better standard of living than abject third world misery?

@superdestroyer:
So we should stop subsidizing Walmart…who doesn’t pay people enough to live on without food-stamps? Or MacDonalds?
And when are you going to give up your housing and health care subsidies?
Yeah…that’s what I thought.

Go back and look at the administrations of Eisenhower and Truman. Look at leaders like Humphrey, Russell Long, William Fulbright, Sam Rayburn, Mark Hatfield, Daniel Moynihan, and the incomparable Everett Dirksen. Who today can compare ? These were models of leadership and getting things done. Future candidates need to read their biographies and books.
I would like to hear some of your favorite leaders.

If walmart wages are so bad, why are there people standing in long lines to GET said jobs?

Because 35 years of an America dominated by conservative politics have left honest, hard working people in a position where they have to fight for the crumbs, with no real shot at getting ahead no matter how hard they work, while the real wealth of the country continues to flow to the top at a rate not seen since before the depression. Because most people would rather work at any job than not work.

Still waiting for you to show where I have mentioned “fairness”, but I am not holding my breath.

Democrats like Stewart, we think he is smart, funny and clever. He is helping Democrats to win in the younger voter demographic. Beyond that, to compare him to Limbaugh, a man so powerful that leading Republicans in DC, very powerful men themselves, routinely go crawling to him for forgiveness when he is pissed at them, is borderline delusional.

Sean Hannity = NPR

So one guy equal an entire organization? You have an interesting notion of what “=” means.

William Kristol = Paul Krugman

Please show us when Kristol has been right about anything. Krugman, on the other hand, has been right about a great number of things.

@Pinky: Maddow’s a Hannity, not quite an O’Reilly, but she’s definitely not a Coulter. Michael Moore is a Michelle Malkin. No one on the right’s list meets the stature of Bill Clinton. The man is worshiped as a living god.

This is a good one: Ted Cruz = Harry Reid (in the sense that they’re both assholes. Reid’s been around much much longer, though, and his influence can be measured in decades. Cruz…who knows? He might be back.)

And so is this: Darryl Issa = Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

I appreciate that you put a lot of thought into that, so there’s my two cents.

Pinky, I know who everyone in both your columns is because I’m a political junkie. But I can guarantee you no more than one person out of 100 knows who Cenk Uyger is. Al Gore=Sarah Palin? A successful multi-term senator and two-term VP who lost the presidency by one vote versus one of the dumbest people we’ve ever had the misfortune to have heard of? And you should really go read the Chait piece on the racial tensions of the Obama presidency. Chait is the opposite of shrill (I wish he would go all Krugman at times). Mark Levin is a howler monkey. Plus the fact that you have to draw on the entire staff at Slate to equal one raver in Erickson, apparently it takes 30 or so “lamestream” media types to equal one Erick “Son of Erick” Erickson, sort of gives the game away.

@matt bernius: make government work?
Hell on that basis, our founder were terrible citizens who knew government didnt work without strict limits.

Seriously, what does this mean?

That the realz conservatiz majority that you’re sure exists is planning to overthrow the government? Are you advocating for armed revolution?

Because otherwise I don’t get the point you’re making. You’re the one that said that the realz conservatiz majority has given up on voting and participating in government. Basically have become sheeple.

On the other hand, the founding fathers, you know, actually participated in government. They fought. They struggled. But, you know, they actually did things like *vote* and *stand candidates.* The didn’t pick up their toys and go home when the going got rough.

They didn’t cry victim like… well… you seem to do on a regular basis.

Again, explain to me how not voting is in any way a “conservative value.”

I often agree with you. But before I can agree with this, I’d like an example of a far left loony policy proposed by a prominent Democratic legislator or by a Democratic White House and supported by the party leadership. I maintain that you can’t actually find me an example in the last, say, 25 years.

Okay, how does the President of Fox News equal the dude who owns the entirety of Viacom? In fact, how the hell did you not match Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone together? ’cause Murdoch and Clinton are not at all comparable.

@C. Clavin: Rush Limbaugh started off more of a comedian than he is now. Stewart can get preachy maybe once a week. If the comparison was just “influential partisan media figure,” I can see it. Then again, Limbaugh’s radio show exercises more heft among politicians than Stewart’s television show.

@C. Clavin: @anjin-san: It was obvious from the start that none of these were going to be straight comparisons. We’re looking at “plays similar roles in the right and left,” if anything. Coulter and Huffington are closer than Coulter and Maddow by a long shot.

At least, Coulter is idiosyncratic enough that I’m having a hard time thinking of a better example. Maybe Michael Moore? I tried to keep the genders the same.

I appreciate the effort. But I’m going to have to fisk quite a few of these…

@EddieInCA:
Here’s a first pass.

Rush Limbaugh = Jon Stewart

Rush is a 25 year veteran as the biggest presence in talk radio. In his heyday, he was drawing 25 million listeners a week. He has the biggest megaphone the GOP owns. He signed several deals which have paid him several hundred million dollars. Stewart, on the other hand, was a so-so comedian, failed actor, and MTV Talk show host who took over a successful show and made it slightly more successful. One, Limbaugh, has the power to have major political figures grovel at his feet when they happen to speak the truth accidentally. The other, Stewart, has the power to humanize major political figures when they appear on his comedy show for “interviews” while hawking their latest books. There is no equivalency here.

Sean Hannity = NPR

Yeah… No. There is no way that anything on NPR (National Public Radio, key word being NATIONAL) is as far to the left as most of Hannity’s daily radio show. If you’re using the term NPR as a shortcut to many of the radical campus PUBLIC radio stations, you might have a point. However, they’re not NPR. They’re just public radio stations. Regardless, it’s pretty hard to compare one person to an entire national organization and think you’ve made an apt comparison.

Glenn Beck = Chris Matthews

Hmmm… One has a top rated conservative, 3 hours per day, radio show, a top Conservative Website, his own television network. The other has one hour per day on MSNBC in the early evening.

Michelle Bachman = Sheila Jackson Lee

Sheila Jackson Lee was never a “front runner” for the GOP Presidential nomination. But that’s just

I don’t think that you know either of these women too well. One throws bombs. The other actually does her homework.

Rick Santorum = Howard Dean

Close enough. I’ll give you this one.

Jim DeMint = Jimmy Carter

Yeah… because being the partisian Presdient of the partisian Heritage Foundation is the same as being a former President of the USA that has spent most of his post presidential career building homes for those less needy. Other than that, these two could be twins. Not.

William Kristol = Paul Krugman

When in his entire career has Krugman ever had the power over any Dem candidate. Did you forget that William Kristol was a Vice President (Quayle) Chief of Staff? Again. Fail.

Wow. Not even close. When did Debbie Wasserman Schultz hold hearings that were noting but political gamemanship. Try again.

Bill O’Reilly = Michael Moore

When was the last time Michael Moore was relevant? The only ones paying attention to Michael Moore are Conservatives. When’s the last time anyone on the left used Michael Moore as a positive example of anything. When was the last time Michael Moore did anything newworthy – other than trashing Democrats?

Ted Cruz = Harry Reid

Close enough. Both are assholes.

Wayne LaPierre = Bill Moyers

Holy crap! Really? The leader of the NRA, whom every GOP Politician has to pay homage to vs.. Bill Freaking Moyers – who does nice documentaries on how terrible everything in the world is Really?

Matt Drudge = David Brock

Fail. Brent Bozell = David Brock. David Brock doesn’t have the influence that Drudge does. Never has. Never will. There is no one on the left equal to Drudge.

Roger Ailes = Sumner Redstone

Summer Redstone is a businessman. That’s all he’s ever been. Ailes has been, and always will be a Polictical operative. Summer Redstone supported George W. Bush in 2004. Publicly.

Rupert Murdoch = Bill Clinton

No words to say how bad this comparison is.

Sarah Palin = Al Gore

Yeah, others have noted the stupidity of this comparison, so I won’t pile on.

Erick Erickson = Slate

Who at Slate is equal to Erickson? Who at Slate has said the outrageous things that Erickson has said. One person. Who?

Grover Norquist = Ben Jealous

If Ben Jealous had a pledge, any pledge, that Dem candidates had to sign for his support, you might have a point. He doesn’t, so you don’t.

Mark Levin = Jonathan Chait

Wow. You obviously think much more of Levin than most people. I’m offended for Chiat, who writes very long, detailed, meticulously researched pieces.

All comparisons approximate (except for the first one, which is spot-on perfect). Any improvements welcome.
ReplyReply

@Pinky: A for effort. And we’ll all have great fun with this. But I think you’d be hard pressed to justify any of these pairings in detail. Limbaugh and Stewart? Audiences are hardly comparable. Limbaugh has no sense of humor. Are there Stewart dittoheads? NPR, generally well regarded as a source of news = Hannity? Beck and Chris Mathews? Really? I’m a hard core liberal and I yield to no one in contempt for Tweety. But he’s just an opportunist. He’s not foaming at the mouth crazy.

Two months ago, a petition bearing more than 110,000 signatures was delivered to The Post, demanding a ban on any article questioning global warming. The petition arrived the day before publication of my column, which consisted of precisely that heresy.

The column ran as usual. But I was gratified by the show of intolerance because it perfectly illustrated my argument that the left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation — no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition.

The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian. It declares certain controversies over and visits serious consequences — from social ostracism to vocational defenestration — upon those who refuse to be silenced.

Such is the attitude we find in here from the usual suspects. You can see it in the down vote patterns and in the accusations and derision of the loudest of them. And all the while they complain about the GOP drifting right. (Snort)
Were that it were true.

But thank you. I asked who you think is “far left”. I was looking for “sitting or recent representative, senator, or president”, but Pinky’s list is still interesting. Does give an insight into your thinking and where you think the center is.

I suspect most of the regulars on these threads have been watching politics for more than a couple of cycles. We have a historical view of a political center. We don’t think it’s midway between Glenn Beck and Bill Moyers.

@Eric Florack:
Yes…yes…yes…you and Krauthammer have the right to be stupid…no one is denying you that.
But this is America…and we too have the right to say that you are dumb f’ers.
And people have the right to petition the Post to stop publishing dumb shit.
Seriously Eric…fat dumb and stupid is no way to go through life…

@Pinky:
Thanks (and an upvote) for taking the time to fill out that chart. I know you put some thought into it.

Which is why I have to ask:

Sean Hannity = NPR

Seriously?

I mean, the rest is open to debate and disagreement. But this is so far off the charts incorrect that it honestly makes me sad that you think there is any equivalency here. Can you explain your thought process on this one — because there is absolutely no “approximate” connection between the two of these things other than both are on the radio.

BTW, Stephanie Miller or Randi Rhodes would have been fair comparisons. Or if you were really gunning for NPR you could have chosen Tavis Smiley and/or Cornell West.

All that said, the fact that you see any equivalency between Hannity and NPR goes a long way to helping explain why we’re probably never going to agree on anything.

@Tillman: See john, this is when the vote system is useful. Dead heat as of now. (5 vs. 5) This means my comment is contentious. And I would speculate a good deal of both support and opposition is tribal in nature.

Two months ago, a petition bearing more than 110,000 signatures was delivered to The Post, demanding a ban on any article questioning global warming. The petition arrived the day before publication of my column, which consisted of precisely that heresy.

So what? People have the right to petition for any purpose whatsoever. It does not mean that the Post or any other organization needs do as the petitioners want.

The Post has carried Krauthammer’s op-ed pieces for years. Can you imagine an important conservative media outlet routinely running op-ed pieces by a well-known liberal?

@Matt Bernius: If you vote for incompetence, you’ve no room to complain. IF YOU VOTED, YOU SIGNED OFF ON THEM HAVING THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT… THE SINGLE MOST DESTRUCTIVE POWER ON EARTH. . And that is exactly what both parties have given us of late.

@C. Clavin: The right to be stupid? Well, let’s say you tend to exersize that right fairly frequently. Yet I don’t recall anyone trying to stop you.

That said, however, there’s a difference between speaking, and trying to prevent someone from speaking, using the power of government, as we have seen from both the Gaystopo, and the global warmers, as two examples.

What do you think your life expectancy would be if there were anarchy in this country? You do understand, I hope, that the government is pretty much what stands between where we are now (an advanced, stable society) and anarchy.

@Matt Bernius: If you vote for incompetence, you’ve no room to complain. IF YOU VOTED, YOU SIGNED OFF ON THEM HAVING THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT… THE SINGLE MOST DESTRUCTIVE POWER ON EARTH. . And that is exactly what both parties have given us of late

So you agree with my point that “the real silent conservative majority” that you drone on about are a bunch of apathetic sheeple who have abdicated all civic responsibility.

To review:
They don’t stand up and elect their own candidates who represent them (despite being the majority).
They don’t vote or participate in politics.
Even though they believe that this “country”, that they preport to love, is headed to hell in a handbasket, they simply pick up their toys and run away and cry victim and bitch about the Government that they are actively choosing not to participate in.

Despite all this power they apparently command, they can’t do anything useful to get this country back on the right track.

(As a destructive force, though, it pales compared to the last 2 big tsunamis.)

Again, we see that American government works so well that it is invisible to the masses. Forget mandatory national service; what we really need is a mandatory year abroad in a third world country, so that Americans can learn to see government even when it isn’t annoying them.

That said, however, there’s a difference between speaking, and trying to prevent someone from speaking, using the power of government, as we have seen from both the Gaystopo, and the global warmers, as two examples.

Man, if only there was a system of government that would allow real majorities to regularly place people into positions of power to help stop the power of government.

Ok… just spit-balling an idea here:
We could vote for representatives.
You know, find people in the community to stand for election.
We could even do it on a regular basis — say once a year.
That way, the real majorities could nominate people that they think would best represent their views.
And the whole community could vote and elect the best person.

Maybe we could call this “votocracy.”

Heck, I bet we could found an entire country on this sort of principle.

Of course it would require the “real majorities” to actually care about the direction of the country enough to participate in the system of government that they continually talk about countless generations giving their lives for.

Nah, never work. It’s just easier for them to cry victim and bitch about no one taking “personal responsibility” any more.

If you vote for incompetence, you’ve no room to complain. IF YOU VOTED, YOU SIGNED OFF ON THEM HAVING THE POWER OF GOVERNMENT… THE SINGLE MOST DESTRUCTIVE POWER ON EARTH. . And that is exactly what both parties have given us of late

And explain to me how apparently giving up is doing anything to change the system. Or respecting all the work the Founding Fathers did to establish a nation based on a new form of participatory democracy?

Or how by not voting (or managing to get candidates that represent the majority elected in primaries, etc), you somehow get to excuse yourself from helping create the mess that you keep bitching about?

Forget mandatory national service; what we really need is a mandatory year abroad in a third world country, so that Americans can learn to see government even when it isn’t annoying them.

I wouldn’t mind if we made mandatory two year services after high school in either Peace Corp or AmeriCorps. Or, short of mandatory and more politically feasible, focused on graduating seniors in high school and subsidize college costs as payment.

@wr: Well, since you bring that up, yes.
Ponder for example, South Africa, where only something on the order of 7% showed up for an election. Do a bit of research on the matter and you’ll find, I’m quite sure, that there’s very few faster ways of de-legitimzing an abusive government.

Ponder for example, South Africa, where only something on the order of 7% showed up for an election. Do a bit of research on the matter…

Can you provide a bit more context for that “research”

As I’ve been googling ‘”South Africa” AND Low Voter Turnout’ and not coming up with any epic information. Does this have to do with the end of apartheid for example? Or the complete rebuilding of the government. Do you have a year that this happened?

Because for something so siginificant, it’s not particularly easy to find.

Yeah, 22 comparisons crunched out in 2.5 hours (with grocery shopping in the middle), and I didn’t have time to flesh them out.

I assume the original question was about the extremism and the role that each of the people plays in the movement. So let’s look at Stewart and Rush. They both appeal to a hip portion of their movements, that doesn’t maybe take the time to research the news as well as they’d like to (or think they do). They’re both really funny when they’re not being preachy or stale. When they do preach and they get called out on something, they both hide behind “I’m only an entertainer”. Stewart’s whole shtick is “boy, the Republicans and Democrats are both silly, for example, the Republicans”. Limbaugh’s is the mirror image. They both serve as legitimate media critics in an age with below-par media.

But not *ideological symmetry* — or do you think that NPR is as *partisan* as Hannity is? In other words, is NPR as *left* as Hannity is *Republican* (versus conservative/right, as Hannity is, generally speaking, more a Republican shill than a Conservative shill).

Even setting that aside, do you actually think that Hannity has the same investment in journalistic integrity as NPR. Or challengings his audience’s views? Or depth of analysis (because frankly, Hannity’s on air persona is about as dumb as a bag of rocks — especially if you’ve heard the number of times that Jamie Dupree has to patiently explain to Hannity how Congress works after Hannity get’s his summary wrong).

Well as I said, that goes a long way to explaining why we will never agree on much. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates why I find your ability to look at things in from an objective perspective suspect at best.

In fact, the only think that search reveals that approaches your story is a single tea party site that quoted a story that claimed there there was a 7% vote that led to the end of Apartheid — http://fubarandgrill.org/node/1172 . And not surprisingly, this is being used to justify not voting in US elections.

This story provides no actual source for the 7% number. And checking the Wikipedia page and other sources, I find no record of this 7% vote — which if it actually happened would have been pretty significant.

Again, Eric, it seems like you are citing a history *you want to be true* without ever confirming the facts of the matter. And you wonder why we don’t respect what you write.

If this is real fact, then you should be able to quickly find a source and shut me up (which I will gladly do).

@Matt Bernius:
That nearly 80% “sat out” the election because they were black or ‘colored’ helped a lot in getting to that 7% turnout. The 2% or so ‘asiatic’ (mostly Chinese and Indian) voters that ‘sat out’ helped too. Mostly it was that brave half of the ~21% or so that made up the white population choosing to stay home that did it. That suddenly turned the tables where international pressure and sanctions had failed.

@matt bernius: Comparisons are comparisons, not identities. If we did a word association game and you said “Hannity” or “NPR”, my response would be “boring”. And they’re boring in the same way: ideologically predictable and no sense of humor. Does NPR challenge the listener? Hardly ever. They may inform the listener about more things than Hannity, but they’re no more challenging than a bowl of macaroni and cheese on a snowy day. Either of them. They’re comfort food, gooey and predictable.

@anjin-san: You really think the word hasn’t gone into common use? You don’t get out much, do you?

@Scott O: The point was in direct response to a question. Calling it “Ineffective” toward the idea of change seems to lack a certain factual perspective since in a number of cases, of which I’ve cited two, and can cite more at need.

And I would think that the source you found, being a hard leftist site (As well as the large number of re-postings on other left wing sites such as firedoglake) would make you feel somewhat more comfortable. If you don’t trust these as a source, then I submit you need to look harder.

Now, as to it being a path for us,I’m not encouraging anyone else to follow that path, for two reasons…the primary being it’s hardly needed. It’s a moot issue.The vast majority of Americans already don’t vote. And as to why, I’ve already answered that.

The number of people not voting is going up year over year. Its to the point now where the vast majority of Americans simply do not vote at all. Polling data tell us that the majority of Americans come down to the right of anything that either party has puked up since Reagan. That situation has become more pronounced over the last 6 years or so. Nobody is representing the majority of America.

Calling them stupid and or lazy ins’t going to solve that issue. Elections are sales issues like anything else, and the American public isn’t buying what the left (The Dems) and the center-left (GOP) are selling. It’s already in place, and on the ground. It’s reality and needs be dealt with, by giving the voters what they want… and as a bonus, here’s a clue… MOre government is NOT what they want.

@Grewgills: Correct, all points. However, that first point only helps if the understanding is in place that voter turnout was far higher in previous elections.

By the way, I must say that the politics of the writer at fubarandgrill are abysmal at least. But again, the factoid was dropped in response to the idea of non-voting being ‘ineffective”. Whatever one thinks of the ANC, for example, the tactic was hardly ineffective.

And I would think that the source you found, being a hard leftist site (As well as the large number of re-postings on other left wing sites such as firedoglake) would make you feel somewhat more comfortable. If you don’t trust these as a source, then I submit you need to look harder.

Writes the man who typically never cites any source (telling others to “research” the “facts” he cites). BTW, I seem to remember most of your source links going to “hard” rightist sites. You really don’t get the idea of irony at all do you.

But beyond that, I fully admit that I mischaracterized the site I found on my search as being Tea Party when it was far left. My mistake from a cursory reading. However, if you reread my comment I wasn’t citing them as a *good source*. In fact, I said it was the only reference to what you claimed that I could find and it wasn’t sourced either. Which to me makes it useless.

Again, if you have some actual details or a link to historic facts on that vote, would really like to read them.

Actually you’re the one who keeps implying that they are lazy and helpless. Again, WE ARE A PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY. BOTH PARTIES HOLD LOCAL PRIMARIES.

If the “real” majority doesn’t like what they are getting — and they are *truely a united majority as you claim* the solution is directly in front of the: stand candidates and vote them into office.

That’s supposedly what the Tea Party did in the election of 2010.

But, again, the majority of americans, as you portray them, are Sheeple.

The don’t care enough to stand up for office. They don’t care enough to vote the existing people out of office. They supposedly “surround us” but allow themselves to be walked over at every junction, be bullied by a minority of people, and let the country go to hell in a hand basket.

Again, how is that living up to the image of the sainted foudners?

Why do you spend so much time justifying inaction rather than rolling up your sleeves and trying to actually do something productive?

Again, the google search “low voter turnout end of apartheid south africa” turns up very little to back up Eric’s assertion. I ask again, Eric, if this is such a major “fact” please find me a historical citation for it. Because I really do want to read about it to understand its context.

Actually you’re the one who keeps implying that they are lazy and helpless. Again, WE ARE A PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY. BOTH PARTIES HOLD LOCAL PRIMARIES.

That assumes the process is a fair one. After years of watching, Ive yet to see any evidence of that.

If the “real” majority doesn’t like what they are getting — and they are *truely a united majority as you claim* the solution is directly in front of the: stand candidates and vote them into office.

there’s two problems with that. First, that the party would actually be responsive to it. The plight of Ronald Reagan in the 1976 primary season, vs his two landslides in the general election, should give lie to that idea. The current treatment of tea party people within the GOP should give you another indication of that unfairness .

The other problem is a bit more complex to describe but let me attempt it this way. When you’re talking about independence minded people, it’s more than difficult to get them all on the same page.

The best example of this that I can tell you about (At least at the moment… I’m sure I’ll think of a better once I post this).. is the transportation industries response to the fuel prices under Jimmy Carter. In that instance, as with most others of like, you’re talking about people that can agree on lunch much less something more complex. So it was that the trucking shutdown of the early seventies never really took shape in any substantial form. This would also tend to explain the lack of agreement and organization within the Tea party of today.

But beyond that, I fully admit that I mischaracterized the site I found on my search as being Tea Party when it was far left.

noted, but don’t feel bad. That happens rather a lot … people take judgments about what I post without ever bothering to do any basic research, and to that point ….and as for your request of further information, I would urge you to continue your search along the same lines. The fact is, your own research is going to prove more valuable to you than anything I might post because anything you find will be unarguable.or at least, unignoreable.. if that’s a word.,

and as for your request of further information, I would urge you to continue your search along the same lines. The fact is, your own research is going to prove more valuable to you than anything I might post because anything you find will be unarguable.

That Eric is a load of shit.

You keep citing a historical fact — a supposed 7% or so total voter turn out in South Africa. We’re not talking about interpretation. We’re talking about a fact.

It’s a fact that after about an hour of combined searching, I can find absolutely no proof of. Clearly you have actual proof of it because you keep citing it.

Since you brought it up to bolster your position, the rules of argumentation require you to actually back it up. Saying “research harder” in this context becomes the same as saying “I have absolutely no proof.” That’s not the way any form of research or scientific method works. It’s a coward’s retreat.

The fact that I have asked repeatedly, and you have repeatedly failed to respond, for even a hint of assistance in finding proof of said vote does not bode well for your argument.

The plight of Ronald Reagan in the 1976 primary season, vs his two landslides in the general election, should give lie to that idea.

BTW it’s amazing to me that Mr Reagan actually decided to stand in the primary again. Given his real conservative bonafides, and your logic, he should have been a “real American” and given up on the democratic system in 1976.

@mattbernius: @Eric Florack:
I was trying to point out the absurdity of the assertion. Only ~21% of the population had the right to vote, so 21% was the maximum possible turn out. That maybe on some elections half the whites stayed home had nothing to do with the legitimacy of the South African elections. That over 3/4 of the population had no franchise was what made every single apartheid election illegitimate. International pressure, sanctions, and the weight of demographics, eventually won out. The 7% nonsense is nonsense.

You have children, yes? I’m curious – did you send them to private school and pay 100% of their educational expenses, or did you send them to public school, thereby reaching into the pocket of the childless guy who lives down the block from you that does not care one whit about educating your kids? What gives you a valid claim on his money?